St. Anthony hotel bought

By Valentino Lucio :
May 21, 2012
: Updated: May 21, 2012 9:43pm

The St. Anthony hotel at 300 E. Travis St. has been put in receivership. The hotel's was delinquent on a loan and hadn't been properly maintaining it, the lender alleged in a lawsuit. Photogrpahed Friday, February 26, 2010. Jennifer Whitney/ special to the Express-News

Photo By EDWARD A. ORNELAS/SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

FOR BIZ - A view of a plaque outside the St. Anthony hotel Thursday July 12, 2010. (PHOTO BY EDWARD A. ORNELAS/eaornelas@express-news.net)

After more than two years of financial instability, the historic St. Anthony hotel has a new owner.

San Antonio-based BC Lynd Hospitality, an investment and management company, announced Monday that it bought the 103-year-old hotel and plans to give it a $24 million face-lift. CEO Brandon Raney said that because the company's partners are from the Alamo City, they saw an opportunity to renovate a special piece of San Antonio history while helping to revive downtown.

“We're most excited about the opportunity to breathe new life back into the hotel and bring it back to the stature in the community that it once held,” Raney said. “The city has laid out an aggressive plan for revitalization and resurgence in downtown San Antonio. So we've bought in to the city's vision to make it an attractive place.”

Major renovations to the hotel will not start until the summer, Raney said. There are plans to update guest rooms, bathrooms and public areas with new carpet, fixtures and paint. There also will be work done to the heating and air-conditioning system, plumbing and technology, Raney added. Renovations are expected to be complete by late next year.

The plan is to get the hotel back to its original form, Raney said.

“Part of the plan is to return a lot of the spaces back to what they were originally,” he said. “Because we think the guys that originally designed it got it right the first time.”

BC Lynd bought the property from Dallas-based Berkadia Commercial Mortgage LLC, which was its special servicer. The terms of the deal were not released.

The St. Anthony Riverwalk Wyndham is the first hotel the company has bought in San Antonio. The company has plans to invest in more historic hotels downtown and in other cities such as Denver, Raney said.

The hotel's financial troubles started in early 2010, when it went into receivership because then-owner AP/APH was indebted for almost $50 million, according to past reports in the San Antonio Express-News. The hotel currently is assessed at $19.8 million, according to the Bexar Appraisal District.

On multiple occasions, the hotel avoided the foreclosure auction block. It continued to operate but the financial situation got so bad that the hotel nearly had its power cut off, previous reports stated.

While room revenues are on the rise, the hotel's occupancy rate and the average room rate fall below the average for the downtown area.

From April 2011 to March 2012, room revenue at the St. Anthony was up 15 percent, according to Bruce Walker with Source Strategies Inc, a local hotel consulting company. The average for downtown hotels was a 3 percent increase.

Despite the rise in revenue, the hotel's occupancy rate is 55 percent, 8 percentage points lower than the downtown average. Room rates also fall short at about $100 per room. The average for downtown is $142, Walker said.

Still, in order to become relevant again, the St. Anthony's new owners are taking the right approach, Walker added.

“There's certainly room in downtown to generate plenty of money,” he said. “And it seems like they have plenty of capital here to become a nice hotel.”